You see by this what I meant when I called pragmatism a mediator and
reconciler and said, borrowing the word from Papini, that he
unstiffens our theories. She has in fact no prejudices whatever, no
obstructive dogmas, no rigid canons of what shall count as proof.
She is completely genial. She will entertain any hypothesis, she
will consider any evidence. It follows that in the religious field
she is at a great advantage both over positivistic empiricism, with
its anti-theological bias, and over religious rationalism, with its
exclusive interest in the remote, the noble, the simple, and the
abstract in the way of conception.
In short, she widens the field of search for God. Rationalism sticks
to logic and the empyrean. Empiricism sticks to the external senses.
Pragmatism is willing to take anything, to follow either logic or
the senses, and to count the humblest and most personal experiences.
She will count mystical experiences if they have practical
consequences. She will take a God who lives in the very dirt of
private fact-if that should seem a likely place to find him.
Her only test of probable truth is what works best in the way of
leading us, what fits every part of life best and combines with the
collectivity of experience's demands, nothing being omitted.
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